The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of therapeutic touch and muscle relaxation on trait and state anxiety in Tarbiat Moallem University’s students, Tehran. Population of the study included all the students of this university in the academic year 2007-2008.A sample of 40students was selected through simple random sampling. Based on Spielberger state-trait anxiety inventory (STAI),the subjects were put into four groups of ten: Therapeutic touch group, muscle relaxation group, anxious control group and normal group control. In this study which was a quasi-experimental research, pretest-posttest, control group design was used. To analyze and to test the hypotheses of the study, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used. The findings revealed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of state and trait anxiety. Therefore, muscle relaxation can be used to decrease the anxiety, since the results of the study indicated that muscle relaxation method can have an effective role in decreasing state and trait anxiety.  

Keywords: Therapeutic Touch, Muscle Relaxation, State anxiety, Trait anxiety